Independence for many elderly or handicapped individuals is important. One aspect of independence is the ability to live alone (or spend time alone in one's home), if desired. There exist different types of devices that help facilitate the desire to live alone. Such devices are meant to assist the elderly or handicapped in emergency situations.
One such device is a call button. A typical call button device is a wearable device that the individual is supposed to press when they are having difficulty and need emergency assistance. Interviews with assisted living response staff and with manufacturers have revealed that elders in difficulty rarely press the call button. One reason for not using the call button may be attributed to a fear of being moved to assisted care because of their difficulty. Also, some difficulties, such as fainting, prevent the use of the call button.
Another device or system meant to assist the elderly or handicapped in emergency situations was designed as a response to the problems of the call button device. In this type of device, a sensor detects a potentially dangerous situation, such as the individual falling, and automatically calls for emergency assistance. One issue with this type of device is false alarms, due to the difficulty for the device to distinguish all emergency situations (such as falling) from all similar non-emergency situations, such as the individual dropping into bed, or dropping the fall-sensor of the device onto a desktop.